After my very late arrival the night before, this was a late start. I stopped to have a very nice breakfast with my generous hosts first, before finally heading off just after 9am. I rode for about half an hour before becoming very conscious of the sun on my ears again. It was still quite cool (I was wearing a jacket) so just pulling my buff up to cover my ears as well as my neck seemed like an easy solution.
The road undulated with a general upwards trend for the first hour and a bit out of Yarra Junction, before settling into a nice steady climb for 4km and then zipping back down the hill to Noojee.
Nojee looked like a nice little spot, and on top of that it had a cool name, so it seemed like the only sensible decision was to stop there for some food.
The Little Red Duck Café did well for me, and I set out an hour later feeling well fed and content. I had been thinking a bit more about the difference in my travel speed to that of Kristoff, and I had come to terms with the fact that for this race I was simply going slower than him. At the same time, by that point I had about a 700km lead, so I decided that I was just going to travel at the speed that was most enjoyable anyway. There will be more races, and some of them will be raced at 100%, but there’s really no point unless I’m enjoying it as well, so if 90% brings more enjoyment then that’s what I’ll do.
Out of Noojee the road (Mt Baw Baw Tourist Road – pretty obvious it would be winding soon enough) was fairly quiet, but I could see that it was coming to the foot of what I now know is called Vesper Hill, where it was going to be a series of tight turns and, with an average gradient of 7%, I wasn’t going to be flying up it. The road was still straight and clear for the moment though, so when I heard a car approaching from behind I hoped they would do the sensible thing and go straight past me. Disappointingly, they didn’t.
It happens annoyingly often that cars will not take the easy and safe opportunities to pass, but instead will sit behind a cyclist through those areas and then get frustrated to be held up through the areas where it simply isn’t safe to pass. The next step that is worse than that of course is when they ignore the easy and safe passing opportunities, sit there getting frustrated where it isn’t safe to pass, and then get so frustrated that they end up passing where it isn’t safe anyway. I really hoped this car wouldn’t be one of those, as we headed into the twisting bits. As I heard it getting closer though, I had a disappointing feeling that it would be.
I heard the car getting closer, and I could see it wasn’t safe to pass, and I started to worry a bit. I heard the car getting closer still, and I could still see it wasn’t safe to pass, and I started to worry a lot. And then I heard the cowbell. I stopped worrying.
The cowbell carried on behind me for a good couple of turns before the road straightened out a little, at which time the car went past with much tooting and ringing and cheering. It was very nice.
Continuing on up the hill was also pleasant despite my legs feeling totally empty – looking at the Strava record today I can see that two of the top 10 riders up that hill are actually riding in the Tour de France as I write, but I was going a whole lot slower than them. Beyond that hill was even better, with some beautiful scenery, good climbing, and fast descending. What came next though, was fantastic. There was that same car, and it was set up with a feast!
It turned out that Denise and Dan had made a round trip of a couple of hundred kilometres to meet me there, because they figured in Melbourne I would be busy. So they drove out to meet me where they thought I would appreciate it more! Then they saw that I had stopped in Noojee, figured I wouldn’t be hungry immediately, so they drove another 35km to a point where they thought I’d appreciate some food. How good is that?
Denise was coming back from a foot injury, and she said to me that watching my dot had inspired her to train more, and she had resolved that she was going to ride all the way up Vesper Hill. I can’t tell you how happy I felt hearing that. Dan, on the other hand, looked to be in pretty good shape and his questions were very detailed, and focussed on the logistics of the race. He’d obviously already put some thought into it, and from the look in his eye I think he had bigger goals in mind than Vesper Hill.
After a very pleasant stop, I was feeling inspired and the next 40km or so in Traralgon seemed to go by in no time.
The roads here were flat and straight and fast, and after basically feeling ordinary all morning I was finally starting to feeling good. After a while though I looked around and realised two riders were coming up behind me. As they went by, one of them (Jason – who, it turns out, has just had a new baby boy – Congrats Jason!) turned to me with a grin and a nod to my bags, and said “doing strength work, eh?” before putting his head down and pulling away from me. They were working hard and going at a solid clip, but as I said I was feeling good, and I had the benefit of aerobars and it was a stiff headwind, so I put my head down and followed them. I caught one of them and then the other sat up a bit to let us both get back to him, and we had a pleasant chat for a while as I explained what I was doing and why. Unfortunately I lost the wheel when a food wrapper blew out of my boat and I had to stop and get it, but not before getting some solid tips on eating in Heyfield, which was the next town down the road.
It was a very pleasant few kilometres through the golden sunlight down the road before I reached Heyfield. Heyfield turned out to be a GOOD place to eat. Heyfield has a pizza place called Gippy’s, and Gippy’s has something called a Pizza Burger. Now when I first heard the term pizza burger, I thought it would be one extreme or the other – either a gift from the heavens, or a travesty. It turns out, for a hungry ultra-cyclist, a Pizza Burger (capitalisation fully deserved) is a wonderful thing.
Pizza is a wonderful food, full of all sorts of things your body craves when you’re riding across a continent, and delicious to boot. The problem with pizza though is that it is awkward to carry and it takes a long time to eat. The Pizza Burger solves this problem.
Basically it is pizza dough cooked up into a bun, sliced in half, filled with everything that would normally be the topping for the pizza, and then baked some more to stick everything together in a convenient bundle of delicious, ready to be eaten as you ride or stuffed into a bag for later, with no loss of toppings. It is superb. And Gippy’s taste fantastic!
After I had figured out what they were I quickly placed my order, then went outside to wait with about 4 other people. Sitting there, I saw a car pull up, and out of the passenger seat climbed one of the drunkest people I have ever seen standing. It was Good Friday, and it seemed pretty clear that this bloke had spent all of it so far drinking. He wasn’t stand straight, but he was standing. He stumbled from the car into the shop, pausing on his way in to make some sounds at those of us who were sitting outside. I have no idea what those sounds were meant to mean, and in discussion afterwards it was clear that none of us had any idea. We decided he was probably trying to talk, but was far too drunk to make anything recognisable as a word. I was so distracted by him and our discussion on whether he was trying to talk or not that I barely noticed the driver following him in. It wasn’t long until they both came out again, driven out by Gippy, who was making consolatory noises but clearly trying to get them out of his shop. This time it was hard to not notice the driver, as he tripped and fell flat on his face, too drunk to even try to break his fall with his hands. Luckily, he also seemed to be too drunk to feel any pain, so despite the blood he just stood up and continued on back to the car, where they both sat with the doors open.
Soon afterwards I received my Pizza Burgers, and as I sat and ate the first of them I watched the two in the car also receive their food. Then they closed the doors, started the car and drove off. The guy who was too drunk to put up his hands to avoid landing face-first on the path left in charge of a couple of tonnes of steel that could easily top 100km/h. Every now and then people will ask me why I am in favour of autonomous vehicles. Having driven a couple of semi-autonomous vehicles just lately I have to say they are way behind where I hoped they were, but I’m still very much in favour of pushing forward as fast as possible, simply because of guys like this. Looking back on it I have no idea why I didn’t call the police – I really should have, for their sake as well as everyone else’s, but as it is I just hope that they made it home without killing either themselves or anyone else.
Anyway, I had by that time finished my first Pizza Burger and realised that the next one was superbly adapted for travelling, so I packed up and got back on the road. I rode of in the opposite direction to which they had driven, but I have to be honest and admit that I was super nervous for the rest of the night. Happily there were very few cars about, but I made sure I had an escape plan every time I heard one approaching.
My plan had been to head through Bairnsdale, where I thought I could resupply late at night, and then get a little way up the road, but as I started getting closer the traffic started picking up just a little, and it started getting very cold. With thoughts of drivers too drunk to stand up at the front of my mind I pretty quickly decided I didn’t want to be on the road anymore, so when I saw a convenient oval with some nice soft grass outside of Lindenow I decided it was time to stop. It put a bit of a dampener on what had been an otherwise brilliant day, but my spirits were quickly restored by my one last Pizza Burger.
It hadn’t been a huge day, but it was mostly fun, and I was looking forward to tomorrow.
I need more pizza burger in my life. And we all need fewer drunk drivers.